


The Riddler And The Lady Of Games

by MadLoveAndPsychoKisses



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Deadly Games, Dubious Consent, F/M, Hybristophilia, Mutual Narcissism is the Mental Equivalent of Mutual Masturbation, Narcissism, Riddle Kink, Sapiosexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-09-30 22:56:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10174298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadLoveAndPsychoKisses/pseuds/MadLoveAndPsychoKisses
Summary: A woman in the Gotham universe finally, finally appreciates the Riddler. A fascination with Gotham's smartest man in the room spirals into a deadly game that pits Arkham's best and worst against each other on Edward Nygma's terms.Mostly conceived while playing the Riddler levels in the Arkham games, and noticing how few groupies our dear narcissistic genius seems to have. This is a world where he gets everything he ever wanted.





	1. Chapter 1

The Riddler was used to complicated scenarios that resolved themselves as depressingly simple. Ones where you tried to talk people into coming along quietly for their own good, and things went messy, and elegant plans made way to blood and brains sprayed across the wall. Or the times where men walked into his lair spraying bullets, and a frantic search for meaning turned into trying to keep someone - anyone - alive for questioning. It was a refreshing puzzle when the masked Lady showed up at his lair, both hands in the air; that was a puzzle that started out simple, but invited a wealth of possibilities.

Edward Nygma himself came to meet her, as soon as she was suitably incapacitated with a gun to her head and her hands tied behind her back. It wouldn't do to let her get the upper hand, in his own establishment. "I heard you strolled in here demanding to see me," the Riddler observed, his grin contagious and his eyes sparkling. "As it happens, I adore speaking with members of the public who lack the survival instincts to avoid me." He caressed her cheek, his smile turning bitter. "So, why are you here? Assassination attempt? Trying to steal something I invented in my spare time? Or are you selling cookies?"

"None of the above," the woman said, smiling back at him. Rare, that. "I've heard of you, Edward - Riddler, if you prefer. I simply wanted to meet you. To see if you were... everything people say you are." And surprise of beautiful surprises, her voice was full of admiration. Lust. Something like sympathy. Other things Edward could not possibly trust. But God, did she sound delicious.

"You seem to have me at a disadvantage, Miss," he said instead. "What's your name?" His smile was the same, but his gaze cool; he crossed his long legs indolently and leaned back against the wall as he judged his latest intruder.

Her smile was feral in reply, her eyes sharp. "My name? I'm the shade that loves the shade. You're good enough, aren't you, to guess a little riddle?" Her hips bucked towards him in mock-obscenity. "Do you... get me?"

His eyelids fluttered, a smile of pure joy spreading across his face. "I've never heard that before. You made it up. A shade - a color - named after something that likes the darkness, the shadows, the lee of things..." He focused on her, his handsome face all angles and flashing eyes and fierce determination. The face she already might love if she looked at it right. "Violet. Your name is Violet. Those beautiful flowers that cling to the shadows, because they hate overexposure to the withering effects of the light." She nodded, and he grabbed her by the shoulder. He pulled her in to him, embraced her, kissed her deeply.

After he broke from the kiss, Riddler leaned in, caressed her torso, bent his forehead to hers. Then, seized by doubt, he flinched away and circled her throat in one hand.

"Your first name is only half the story," he hissed cunningly. "What's your last name? Without that, I can't leverage my favors and have people look you up. I'd never know who wanted you to come here to me. What do you really want?" He shoved her away from him dismissively. "I have yet to determine why you would visit a currently powerless villain like the former tabloid great, 'The Riddler'."

"Because no one else has a mind like yours," she insisted, in the tones of someone saying a simple fact. "Of all of my underworld contacts, you're the man I wanted to meet, to get to know. And you wouldn't be fighting so hard if you didn't want to know me too." She caught his gaze briefly, smiling like a snake. "Darling - cooks and killers use me. Assassins and soldiers. Fishermen and sculptors. I don't care who." She blew him a kiss. "In French, though, you know, anything sounds better."

"Take her to a room for the night, and lock her in," the Riddler ordered. But he watched her thoughtfully as she was dragged away. It was a good riddle, as far as it went. He'd have his people look up everything about Violet Couteau they could find (Couteau - French for knife) and was looking forward to their talk the next morning. He was fairly sure she wasn't what she seemed, but the intellectual challenge of finding out what she was would be a welcome change to his normal boring routine.


	2. The Start of the Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Riddler has a chat with his puzzling houseguest.
> 
> There is some clothing porn in this chapter, but no actual smut.

The Riddler let himself in to the bedroom where the intruder had been stored the night before, an unglamorous windowless cell where a recently-deceased bodyguard had once slept. She was already awake, and stood up when he entered the room.

"My people told me you didn't try to escape during the night," he mentioned to his captive.

"Of course not," she replied, but otherwise said nothing.

He paced in towards her slowly. "You'll be glad to know I confirmed your identity, such as it is. Not trivial - most people in Gotham know you as the Lady of Games. In one of several languages. Specializing in information, antiquities, and weapons - the fun kind, like my people use." He allowed himself a faint, approving smile. "You've worked with Scarecrow, Joker's crew, brief failed job with R'as Al Ghul - oops, but ehhh, he can be touchy - all of the low-level procurement variety. No permanent associations. Also no known addresses, living relatives, or relationships." She gave only a nod at the summation of his findings.

He took a moment to study her in a way he had not the previous night, when he had simply summarized her as an amalgamation of psychotic bravery, suspected intelligence, and a lean body topped by a porcelain half-mask. He slowly put together his fleeting impressions of a determined jawline, full lips, a long neck, into a single face. Her dark, wavy hair was tousled from sleep and loose around her shoulders. The mask was mostly white, but a green diamond was painted over one eye, it and her eyes lined in gold. Her nose was a bit pointed, making her look slightly elfin and younger than she must be.

He reached for the gold ribbons at the sides of her mask, wondering for a moment whether she had slept in it. She made no move to stop him as he untied it and set it aside on the bed. He had expected some sort of protest - maybe embarrassment, or shame - but she stood with a seductive smile as if made naked, and pleased to be so. Light skin, slightly freckled, greenish eyes... she looked more Irish than French, if he knew his bone structures. Which, of course, he knew his everything.

He moved on with his inspection. Her dress was green - not quite what he thought of as Riddler green, but a darker emerald. At the waist and sleeves, a delicate fall of lace was marked in a gold diamond pattern that mimicked the shape on her mask. He caught her wrist between two slender fingers, traced the embroidery there before releasing it. "Harlequin imagery, is it? I'd have thought you would know... it's my unhinged associate who loves clowns." His smirk was a joyless baring of teeth.

"No one would mistake you for that deranged maniac," the Lady agreed dismissively. "Riddles are far more sophisticated than jokes." The curve of her lips was inviting, letting him in on the punchline. "As for my clothes, if you look closer... they're squares, not diamonds. Like a chessboard seen sideways." She sighed melodramatically. "But alas, black and white washed out my skin. So some of the subtlety of the image was lost to vanity."

"If you went around in black and white, your associates might mistake you for one of Harvey's women," Riddler noted, not sure why he should care who she belonged to.

"Indeed." Her sharp canines flashed in a smile, fox-like. "On the whole, it's far more gratifying to be taken for one of yours." She smoothed the silk over a thigh. "And I find that green flatters my eyes." As she'd intended, Riddler looked closer at them - and they were a light, intense, honest-to-Riddler green. No violet in them at all, though why should he expect them to be? Most people didn't have names that fit as well as the one his parents gave him.

He sat on the bed, gestured with his eyes for his strange houseguest to follow him. She sat beside him, at a comfortable distance.

"You're a puzzling woman, Miss Couteau," the Riddler observed. "You seem to be strong - my reports say that you've built your business yourself, without owing any patrons for your current success or safety. That's an achievement for anyone in this town, much less an attractive female." He narrowed his eyes at her. "So why do I get the impression that I could do absolutely anything to you, and you wouldn't protest?"

She laughed - not unpleasantly, but charmingly, as if they were discussing a play. "What gave you that impression, Edward? There's an awful lot you COULD do that I would object to... I just trust you not to do it."

"I've taken you hostage," he listed off. "Shackled you. Threatened you. Groped you. Put you under my power." He raised an eyebrow at her. "What in the world would you find unacceptable, woman?"

The Lady sighed. "It seems that even to a super-genius, some things are not obvious." She crossed her legs demurely. "I put myself under your power, Mr. Nygma. I arranged for my own absence, knowing that this would almost certainly happen. I definitely don't mind you touching me. And as for what I would dislike... despite all of those things, you have never once questioned my intelligence."

The Riddler moaned low. "Why are you still here, Miss Couteau."

"That's a better question than you were asking." She went quiet for a moment, thinking. "I want to help you."

"Me? How would you help me?" He looked at her cynically, the old anger rising. Just because he hadn't killed her in any number of interesting ways, did she think she was... better? That he was some kind of tool, a sidekick, someone to be manipulated by hope? Like everyone else passably interesting had thought about him, in the end?

"You said it yourself," she said quietly. "You're not as famous as you ought to be. Other, lesser men have stolen your glory. No one knows what it takes to be the greatest mind of a dark, complicated place like Gotham... because they aren't listening to you."

"It's true that the common man pays attention to politicians, or celebrities, or the rich... on our side of the fence there are degenerates like the Batman or anarchists like the Joker that get all of the air time..." He caught himself, remembering his purpose, and smiled like a shark, patting her hand. "But who would you want to eliminate, my dear, to see me rise back to my deserved prominence?" And here it would come, the name of whoever she or her agent really wanted gone.

But her answer surprised him. "Why - all of them. Everyone who ever wronged or disrespected you." Her eyes were wide and earnest. "With some logistical support, we - you - could do it. Play the greatest game of them all. One that no one would forget. And one that would settle the score forever as to who was the best player, the finest mind, in Gotham. In history, even."

It was impossible. It was a trick. It was the most delightful idea ever.

"A game of intellect. Where all of the undermenschen would have to prove their basic mental competence in order to live," he thought aloud.

"Sometimes, in comparison with each other?"

"Naturally. Basic trials of life and death connected with even simpler trials of thought -" the Riddler looked back at her, and suppressed the urge to swing her around in a dance. He wasn't, compared to his other achievements, particularly skilled at dancing. "Miss Couteau, might you be my guest for the next few days while we talk about hypothetical arrangements for this game you've suggested?"

"Gladly," she said with a nod. "Might I use my phone? Now that we've cleared up who's not killing who, I do have a shipment or two to check in with."

He saw to it that her phone was returned to her, and while he monitored it for the rest of the day, it was only the expected chatter about aunts and peaches that coordinated the movement of medical trucks carrying hidden caches of obscure bioweapons and inconspicuous SUVs collecting payoffs. He was forced to conclude that Violet Couteau might be exactly what she seemed: shady, dangerous, but otherwise exactly what she seemed - an admirer with an implausible, but wholly tempting plan.


End file.
